Beached
by Converse r life
Summary: Ariel has been beached for the day, and Attina is forced to babysit her. Basically my take on how Ariel became interested in human things, and it all started with a book....


"I'm so _bored_." Attina sighed as she looked over at her youngest sister, who was now lounging at the window, looking out into the big sea.

"Ariel, you could help me clean up. Father will be mad if our room is still a mess." Attina answered, picking up Aquata's stuffed sea horse and placing it on her bed.

Their Father had come in earlier that morning and had told them to clean up their room. By that he meant Ariel, who was beached for swimming too far away in the sea the day before, and Attina, who was babysitting her because their father didn't trust Ariel being left alone....and bored....well that was pretty much it.

"Hmph, I don't even know why we have to clean up the room. He's barely in here anyway, it's not like it matters." Ariel spoke the voice of reason, but being the eldest, she had responsibilities. And she also had to take care of her sisters since.....since their mother.....had....no, don't think about that.

It was almost 7 years ago that their mother had been...._killed_by humans. Attina still had trouble believing that her mother was gone forever. As far as Ariel knew about their mother, she had just died 7 years ago in a terrible accident. She was five at the time; she really hadn't known what was happening. But Attina had known, and she thought about their mother every day.

"Stop whining and just help me out." Attina finally answered her sister, and Ariel looked up at her sister, sensing something was wrong. That was the downside to sharing a room with all her sisters, they always could sense when something was off.

"Attina?" Ariel asked, sitting on Attina's bed and staring at her sister as she picked up around the room.

"Yes?" Attina answered her little sister, looking up with an annoyed look.

"Well.....it's about...." Ariel nervously fidgeted, and Attina raised her eyebrows. It was never good when Ariel fidgeted, like she had something to say but didn't know how to explain it.

"Spit it out Ariel." Attina said with a laugh, and Ariel laughed along with her, but her laugh sounded forced.

"It's about....our mother." Ariel whispered out, and immediately after the words were out of her mouth, she dived under the pillow of Attina's bed. Ariel knew the one rule that one _ever _spoke out loud; never mention their mother. All of her sister's knew what had happened that day, they all remembered, even Adrina who was only 6 at the time could remember more than Ariel could.

"Oh." Attina said with a sigh. Of course Ariel was curious, she was thirteen and their mother was barely mentioned. Even when she was mentioned, it was late at night when all of the sisters were gathered around each other, whispering and remembering old memories that Ariel could never remember.

"N-n-never mind. That was a mistake; I didn't mean to say it." Ariel said quickly, still hidden under the pillow, scared of her sister's reaction.

"What do you want to know?" Attina asked, sitting on her bed next to her sister who sat up, bewildered.

"Um....I don't really know. How about....what actually happened to her? I'm not little anymore, I want to know." Ariel said, looking at her older sister with wide eyes. Attina sighed knowing her littlest sister was right.

"I know you're not little anymore, and you do deserve to know." Attina admitted. "Okay, let me begin at the very beginning. It was a beautiful day to go to the surface, and the music that was being played was enchanting. All of us hid behind a big rock, as we spied on Daddy and Momma, and Daddy gave her a music shell, that played her favorite song. Daddy was about to kiss her, and we all started to giggle. But they heard us and we ducked behind the rock quickly, but Daddy found us and picked us all up in his arms. It was fun, and I sat on the rock with Momma, and Daddy threw you into air....but then a storm came.

There was this ship.....it was getting closer to us, and closer. Daddy grabbed all of you in his arms, and brought you under the water for safety, but I was stuck. A rock was on my fin, and I couldn't move it because it was too heavy, but Momma somehow pushed it off and I jumped into the water to safety. Momma was right on my tail....at least I thought she was. Daddy realized that Momma had gone back up to the surface to grab the music shell....but it was too late. The ship hit her....and all that was left was the music shell. I never saw that shell again." Attina said, wiping a tear from her eye. Ariel looked up with her big blue eyes, and then back down again and sighed.

"How come I don't remember that?" Ariel whispered out quietly, and Attina looked at her sister and shrugged, trying to be normal again. She hated crying in front of her sisters, it showed that she was as vulnerable as them.

"You were five years old Ariel. You probably just forgot after awhile." Attina with a rather forced smile, because it out of all her sisters, it hurt her the most. She had been the oldest at the time, so she remembered more memories of her mother than the others. Not to say it didn't hurt her sisters; they had all been affected by their mother's death.

"Our mother.....what did she look like?" Ariel asked, changing the subject quickly. Attina pursed her lips for a moment at the question, before smiling and answering.

"Actually....just like you." Attina answered with a grin, and adjusting her hair as she felt a lock fall out of its usually tight do.

"Like me?" Ariel repeated her blue eyes wide as she tilted her head, question written all over her face.

"You have her red hair. Plus you have her purple shells." Attina said with a laugh swimming to Ariel's small vanity that of course she never used, and picked up her brush.

"I do?!" Ariel questioned again, to the amusement of her oldest sister. She always wondered why her band....er _shells _didn't match her tail, like the others.

"Yes." She said with a laugh. "Sit still; let me see if I can control this monster you call your hair." She teased, brushing out her smallest sister's hair with ease.

"Why does Father hate us?" Ariel asked, tilting her head backwards to see her older sister's expression. Attina was shocked at the question but she couldn't say she hadn't seen this coming.

"His name is Daddy, and he doesn't hate us." Attina answered, pushing her sister's head back to its original spot.

"Could've fooled me. Besides, we always call him Father, we never, or at least _I_ never call him Daddy. And, it's like we only see him in the mornings and then at night. And we can't play any music, or sing, but I don't understand why! I remember being really little and Momma singing me back to sleep, so why can't we let her memory live on by singing and having fun?" Ariel would have to learn to hold her tongue soon or it would land her in a lot of trouble.

"Ariel, don't talk like that. Sometimes it better to leave things as they are, and not question them." Attina answered her youngest sister, brushing through a stubborn knot. Still, Ariel made a lot of sense.

"But Attina--" Ariel tried again to have her sister see her point, but it didn't work for her.

"Ariel, don't argue." Attina said with annoyance, and Ariel stopped talking, she just pouted. "I'm pulling your hair back in a ponytail, okay?" Attina said, in hope that her sister would stop her little tantrum. Ariel dipped her head back to see Attina's amused smile, and she grinned.

"Okay!" Ariel said happily, bringing her hand to her mouth. Ariel always bit her nails when she was thinking hard, to the annoyance of Attina.

"Don't bite your nails." Attina said, smacking Ariel's hand from her mouth.

"Ow." Ariel muttered, rubbing her sore hand.

"Oh please. Don't be so dramatic." Attina muttered, pulling her sister's hair back with a pearl hair tie. The girl had all these nice clips and hair pieces, and she never even touched them!

"I'm not being dramatic!" Ariel whined, and Attina just had to grin.

Ariel had just turned thirteen a week before, and Attina had made sure her smallest sister finally switched from a band, to actual sea shells. Of course, Ariel had thrown a tantrum, saying that she didn't want to grow up. All of her sisters had finally calmed Ariel down enough and bribed her with enough candy to switch to actual sea shells, because she _was_ growing.

"Okay, sure you're not being dramatic. There, finally your hair is controlled. I don't know why you never brush it out." Attina said with a smile as Ariel shook out her head and then leaned back to see her older sister.

"I do brush it out." Ariel defended. "It just got all knotted when I was exploring that sunken ship yesterday." Immediately after saying that, Ariel's blue eyes went wider than they ever had, and she clapped both her hands over her mouth. Attina's mouth hung open, and she grabbed Ariel's arm before she could swim away from her.

"You were exploring a sunken ship? Ariel! You know were not allowed out there! Humans could hurt you if they found you out there, they're dangerous!" Attina said, shocked. She wasn't going to let her youngest sister get hurt by a fish eater!

"But Attina, I'm smart enough not to get close to a hook!" Ariel protested, squirming out of her sister's grasp. But Attina held firmly to her arm, and forced her to sit on her bed.

"Really? Are you smart enough to escape a camouflaged **net**?! Ariel, they _killed_ our mother and they didn't regret it, and as a result music was banned from the kingdom. If Daddy did that because Momma died, think what he would do if _you_died." Attina hated this, she really did. She hated having to act like a mother, when all she wanted was to be a sister to her sisters. At nineteen she was already a woman, and she wanted to talk to boys, leave her sisters alone to do whatever they wanted, go to the parties that she only dreamed of because music was forbidden. But she couldn't because she was the oldest, and it was her job to keep her sisters in line.

"Human's can't be all that bad though." Ariel defended her point, looking at her sister sincerely. "Some of them might be bad, but maybe the majority of them are good. Like there's got to be another thirteen year old girl that lives on land who's not bad, and she probably doesn't even know about the bad humans. See?" Ariel tried to explain her reasoning, but Attina wouldn't listen. Humans killed her mother, humans were the reason there was no music, and humans were dangerous fish killers.

"Ariel, listen to me." Attina instructed in a serious tone that made Ariel look up. "Stay away from the shipwrecks, the surface, and anything that you know is from land. Humans are bad; they will kill you without regret like they did to our mother. Stay away from them Ariel, it can only cause trouble." She warned, in a serious voice, one that Ariel knew that if she argued, it would just land in an argument with her oldest sister. But she had to at least try.

"Attina I found these human books though, and---" Ariel was cut off as a voice she knew all too well erupted from behind them and the girls turned around, both wide eyed. Ariel fearfully attempted to look up....to see her father's infuriated expression, his triton even starting to glow.

"Humans?! You found human books!" He roared, and Ariel fearfully hid behind Attina, who squeezed her sister's hand. The girls might have different views on things, but when it came down to it they were sisters, and sisters stuck together, no matter what.

"Father, calm down. She didn't know they were human books, it was an honest mistake." Attina started, noticing how her Father's triton stopped glowing as he considered the possibility. In his mind it wasn't possible that Ariel had 'mistakenly' taken a human book, seeing as how everyone knew what those books looked liked, but he gave his daughters the benefit of the doubt and just narrowed his eyes at his oldest. "Yesterday when she was swimming she saw books in the sand, and she thought that they were Atlantican books so she opened them to see if it belonged to someone. And then she realized that they were human books, that's why she was so out of breath when she came home yesterday, she was scared." Attina said the lie with confidence, feeling Ariel squeeze her hand as a thank you.

Triton's anger immediately vanished, as he looked at both his daughters and realized that they must be telling the truth. Why wouldn't they? It made sense, and Ariel knew to stay away from humans! Besides, as the oldest Attina never lied to him, she was truthful because she knew one day she'd have to be queen.

"Alright then. Carry on with your cleaning." Triton said finally, swimming out of the room. No matter how he tried to convince himself though, he couldn't shake off the feeling that Ariel had willingly found those books, and that she had probably read through them, in amazement of the human world. Nonsense, he thought to himself, forcing those thoughts out of his mind. But still, that little voice inside his head told him to keep a sharp watch over Ariel for the next few years, just to make sure she didn't do anything rash or crazy.

* * *

**Do you like it? Please, please, please review and tell me what you think! Please! It's just _my_view on how Ariel got intrested into human things, but there are other people who have written pretty good stories about this too, so I tip my hat off to them all. Thanks for reading, and I'll start posting more stories soon! REVIEW!!**


End file.
